Poor bioavailability is a significant problem encountered in the development of compositions in the therapeutic, cosmetic, agricultural and food industries, particularly those materials containing a biologically active material that is poorly soluble in water at physiological pH. An active material's bioavailability is the degree to which the active material becomes available to the target tissue in the body or other medium after systemic administration through, for example, oral or intravenous means. Many factors affect bioavailability, including the form of dosage and the solubility and dissolution rate of the active material.
In therapeutic applications, poorly and slowly water-soluble materials tend to be eliminated from the gastrointestinal tract before being absorbed into the circulation. In addition, poorly soluble active agents tend to be disfavored or even unsafe for intravenous administration due to the risk of particles of agent blocking blood flow through capillaries.
It is known that the rate of dissolution of a particulate drug will increase with increasing surface area. One way of increasing surface area is decreasing particle size. Consequently, methods of making finely divided or sized drugs have been studied with a view to controlling the size and size range of drug particles for pharmaceutical compositions.
For example, dry milling techniques have been used to reduce particle size and hence influence drug absorption. However, in conventional dry milling the limit of fineness is reached generally in the region of about 100 microns (100,000 nm), at which point material cakes on the milling chamber and prevents any further diminution of particle size. Alternatively, wet grinding may be employed to reduce particle size, but flocculation restricts the lower particle size limit to approximately 10 microns (10,000 nm). The wet milling process, however, is prone to contamination, thereby leading to a bias in the pharmaceutical art against wet milling. Another alternative milling technique, commercial airjet milling, has provided particles ranging in average size from as low as about 1 to about 50 microns (1,000-50,000 nm).
There are several approaches currently used to formulate poorly soluble active agents. One approach is to prepare the active agent as a soluble salt. Where this approach cannot be employed, alternate (usually physical) approaches are employed to improve the solubility of the active agent. Alternate approaches generally subject the active agent to physical conditions that change the agent's physical and or chemical properties to improve its solubility. These include process technologies such as micronization, modification of crystal or polymorphic structure, development of oil based solutions, use of co-solvents, surface stabilizers or complexing agents, micro-emulsions, supercritical fluid and production of solid dispersions or solutions. More than one of these processes may be used in combination to improve formulation of a particular therapeutic material. Many of these approaches commonly convert a drug into an amorphous state, which generally leads to a higher dissolution rate. However, formulation approaches that result in the production of amorphous material are not common in commercial formulations due to concerns relating to stability and the potential for material to re-crystallize.
These techniques for preparing such pharmaceutical compositions tend to be complex. By way of example, a principal technical difficulty encountered with emulsion polymerization is the removal of contaminants, such as unreacted monomers or initiators (which may have undesirable levels of toxicity), at the end of the manufacturing process.
Another method of providing reduced particle size is the formation of pharmaceutical drug microcapsules, which techniques include micronizing, polymerisation and co-dispersion.
However, these techniques suffer from a number of disadvantages including at least the inability to produce sufficiently small particles such as those obtained by milling, and the presence of co-solvents and/or contaminants such as toxic monomers which are difficult to remove, leading to expensive manufacturing processes.
Over the last decade, intense scientific investigation has been carried out to improve the solubility of active agents by converting the agents to ultra fine powders by methods such as milling and grinding. These techniques may be used to increase the dissolution rate of a particulate solid by increasing the overall surface area and decreasing the mean particle size. U.S. Pat. No. 6,634,576 discloses examples of wet-milling a solid substrate, such as a pharmaceutically active compound, to produce a “synergetic co-mixture”.
International Patent Application PCT/AU2005/001977 (Nanoparticle Composition(s) and Method for Synthesis Thereof) describes, inter alia, a method comprising the step of contacting a precursor compound with a co-reactant under mechanochemical synthesis conditions wherein a solid-state chemical reaction between the precursor compound and the co-reactant produces therapeutically active nanoparticles dispersed in a carrier matrix. Mechanochemical synthesis, as discussed in International Patent Application PCT/AU2005/001977, refers to the use of mechanical energy to activate, initiate or promote a chemical reaction, a crystal structure transformation or a phase change in a material or a mixture of materials, for example by agitating a reaction mixture in the presence of a milling media to transfer mechanical energy to the reaction mixture, and includes without limitation “mechanochemical activation”, “mechanochemical processing”, “reactive milling”, and related processes.
International Patent Application PCT/AU2007/000910 (Methods for the preparation of biologically active compounds in nanoparticulate form) describes, inter alia, a method for dry milling raloxifene with lactose and NaCl which produced nanoparticulate raloxifene without significant aggregation problems.
One limitation of many of the prior art processes is that they are not suitable for commercial scale milling. The present invention provides methods for overcoming the problems identified by the prior art by providing a milling process which provides particles with increased surface area, yet can also be scaled up to a commercial scale.
One example of a therapeutic area where this technology could be applied in is the area of acute pain management. Many pain medications such as diclofenac are commonly prescribed as pain relief for chronic pain. As a result they are commonly taken on a daily basis to maintain an effective therapeutic level. Diclofenac is a poorly water soluble drug so dissolution and absorbtion to the body is slow. So a method such as the present invention which provides for improved dissolution, will likely provide much faster absorption resulting in a more rapid onset of the therapeutic effect. By using a method such as the present invention, which provides faster absorption, a drug such as diclofenac, could be used more readily to treat acute pain as well as chronic pain.
Although the background to the present invention is discussed in the context of improving the bioavailability of materials that are poorly or slowly water soluble, the applications of the methods of the present invention are not limited to such, as is evident from the following description of the invention.
Further, although the background to the present invention is largely discussed in the context of improving the bioavailability of therapeutic or pharmaceutical compounds, the applications of the methods of the present invention are clearly not limited to such. For example, as is evident from the following description, applications of the methods of the present invention include but are not limited to: nutraceutical and nutritional compounds, complementary medicinal compounds, veterinary therapeutic applications and agricultural chemical applications, such as pesticide, fungicide or herbicide.
Furthermore an application of the current invention would be to materials which contain a biologically active compound such as, but not limited to a therapeutic or pharmaceutical compound, a nutraceutical or nutrient, a complementary medicinal product such as active components in plant or other naturally occurring material, a veterinary therapeutic compound or an agricultural compound such as a pesticide, fungicide or herbicide. Specific examples would be the spice turmeric that contains the active compound curcumin, or flax seed that contains the nutrient ALA an omega 3 fatty acid. As these specific examples indicate this invention could be applied to, but not limited to, a range of natural products such as seeds, cocoa and cocoa solids, coffee, herbs, spices, other plant materials or food materials that contain a biologically active compound. The application of this invention to these types of materials would enable greater availability of the active compound in the materials when used in the relevant application. For example where material subject to this invention is orally ingested the active would be more bioavailable.